TALEBAN warlords are using cash from Afghanistan's bumper opium poppy crop to try to buy shoulder-launched ground-to-air missiles, the country's anti- narcotics tsar has warned.
The surface-to-air missiles played a key role in driving out Soviet troops in the 1980s because they let mujahideen fighters shoot down Russian helicopters. Military commanders fear that such attacks could paralyse current Nato operations.
Afgha
nistan's counter-narcotics minister, General Khodaidad, said the Taleban was busily scouring illegal arms markets for better anti-aircraft weapons.
He said: "They are trying to get weapons to shoot down helicopters. They are trying to get ground-to-air missiles and they are trying to get anti-aircraft guns.
"If they get them they would limit the movement of helicopters and take away Nato's main advantage."
Afghanistan's opium trade is worth £2 billion a year, almost half the country's GDP, and UN officials say the Taleban gets up to 60 per cent of its income from drugs.
Gen Khodaidad has first-hand experience of the devastation ground-to-air missiles can cause. He spent seven years fighting the mujahideen as part of Afghanistan's communist army.
He said: "They cause a lot of casualties, they bring down the morale of the armed forces and they limit the movement of helicopters."
Some British outposts are so far inside Taleban territory that it is too dangerous to reach them by road, so everything, from men to ammunition, has to be flown in by helicopter, and Attack helicopters have a key role supporting ground forces.
The full article contains 264 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
